Stem Learning Network

STEM Education Centers, like the Center at CU Boulder, serve as incubators for transformational changes of higher education practices and culture. By creating and studying a national network of university-based centers of STEM education, we will incubate, support, and leverage key institutional resources – both individual centers and a national network of centers. research on a network of these centers can delineate the potential impacts of the network itself, the nature of such a network, and foundational studies on how such a network is created. These studies will serve to inform the development of the network itself, providing a dynamic, more robust, and more likely-to-be-sustained network.

While individual centers can have dramatic impact on local campuses and regional communities, a national network can both support transformation within individual campuses and link them together as a formidable engine for transforming STEM education. A learning network or community of practice that engages leaders of STEM Ed Centers would lead to two important outcomes:

collaborative learning among the leaders of centers would nurture professional expertise within this community strengthening the work of each center individually

collective learning by the group about national reform of STEM education would provide a conduit for information flow between institutions and national efforts

This project will engage in three intertwined components:

seeding the development of a network through programmatic work,

studying the capacities and mechanisms of individual centers (how they operate within institutional contexts), and

researching the development of a network of such centers, identifying how such a network forms, and what this network may accomplish.